We were forced to sell everything we owned - Cambridge Evening News
An interesting article here about a family whose business was taken down by the collapse of MG Rover in 2005.
Benighted housewife Marie Browne persuaded her family to buy a narrowboat from the remnants of their fortune and move afloat:
Persuading her husband and kids to relocate to the river was, adds Marie, a tough sell. “Never mind the fact none of us had been on a boat before, to me it seemed like our get-out-of-jail-free card,” she says.
... Deciding to move the boat from Rugby to Cambridge, the family spent three weeks travelling. In that time they had several crashes; at one point the boat spent four hours wedged broadside across the river. Marie was chased by wasps. And Geoff almost drowned.
“Every time I phoned my mum we’d had another disaster,” laughs Marie. “She said I should write a book and that’s how it started really. I kept a diary while we were travelling and I found it quite cathartic, writing about how I felt.”
Her tales could so easily have turned into a blog.
Instead, the result is Narrow Margins, a books that's received nothing but 5-star customer reviews on Amazon since its publication last month. Of course, they could all be friends, family and fellow Camboaters, but still...
Should you blog or should you 'write'? I guess you can do both. The problem with blogging as a test-run for a book is not that you are giving away your writing for free (editing will make it a very different book anyway) but the ability to find the neutral, honest feedback that an editor can give. Most people tend to be far too complimentary in public.
Marie's publisher, Accent Press, has useful submission guidelines, should you want to try your luck with your own boating tale.
More about Marie's tale here on BBC Cambridgeshire, including pictures inside NB Happy Go Lucky before and after they turned it into their home.
The Brownes sold the boat and moved back to the bank after a couple of years, but quickly got wistful for the water again and are now restoring a second boat - and Marie's already penning a sequel.
cool canals was mentioned on midlands today,it is apparently flying off the shelves at the moment.Also apparently bookings for canal holidays is at record levels,is that a good thing i wounder.
Posted by: iain smith | Thursday, 15 October 2009 at 04:11 PM